MoodboardJunkYard

Underworld Moodboard

PHOTOREALISM

With such advanced technology available the ‘photorealistic’ art style has become the default for most game de-signers/artists. Photorealism offers a certain level of immersion that no other art-form can offer, the reason for this is that photorealism has such a great amount of detail compared to cel-shading and similar styles the down-side however, is that a photorealistic aesthetic is much harder to achieve than a simpler method (e.g. cel-shad-ing). The player can relate to what they are seeing in-game because the texture would look so realistic.

Grand Theft Auto 5

When Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA 5) released in 2013 it was highly praised for its immense attention to detail and its great focus on realism. GTA 5 was widely known for having the greatest graphics of the 7th generation of consoles. Due to the fact that the graphics were so detailed and how much content there was in the game, the information had to be held on two discs. The level of detail and realism really helps to immerse the player in the world that Rockstar created, a good example of this is during one of the first missions as Trevor; during his drive to the main city ‘Los Santos’ he stops on a hill and gives you a great view of the city which is an incredi-ble cinematic shot. To this day GTA 5 still impresses gamers with it’s graphics making it a somewhat timeless classic. The photorealistic look impacted the narrative of the game because it offered realism in a game about the writers take on capitalism in America and how fake the country is, this offered players a way to relate to the game.

Aaron Garbut, the art director of the game used the game as a way to explore the technical side of the graphics as opposed to just the aesthetic. People in the studio have stated that it was odd to see him “typing in texture co-ordinates”.

Until Dawn

The sci-fi horror game ‘Unti lDawn’. Whilst the game is lacking on gameplay, the graphics are great. Until Dawn’s photorealistic graphics are essential to the game as the player needs the grounding element of graphics because in order to build fear and suspense you need the situation to feel real.

CEL SHADING

Cel shading is a form of non-photorealistic shading in 3D computer games. It is used to make 3D assets appear as though they are 2D, this is often used when making a comic book or cartoon inspired game. Cel shading has a simpler process than a lot of other shading methods. Mostly solid colour is used in cell shad-ing, some games have been known to incorporate blending with cel shading such as Prince of Persia and Borderlands 2.

Ultimate Spider-Man

An example of a cel shaded game would have to be the Ultimate Spider-Man game that was made for 6th generation consoles and PC by Treyarch. This game is based off the Ultimate Spider-Man comic series which has shares a very similar aesthetic to a cel shaded game (as do most comic books). The cel shading and the comic-esque art style made the game somewhat iconic, this is due to the game being so faithful to the source material. The cel shading was important because of the technology that was available. From what I can tell, the studio had two options; make a Spiderman game with poor graphics that would have aged terribly or use the more simplistic art that the comics used and make the game more timeless. Cel shading was also effec-tive because people don’t expect realism so you can take more risks with the direction of movement and add more exaggeration.

The Art Director (Chris Soares) for Ultimate Spider-Man has noted on his LinkedIn page that he has an in-terest in “comic books and graphic novels”. This undoubtedly helped when deciding the art direction for the game, he is most likely a fan of the source material and knows what the fans want. Chris studied at The Mar-yland Institute College of Art which has received many good reviews.

Borderlands 2

Another example of a cel shaded game is Borderlands 2, this game is graphically superior to the previous game I mentioned because it was made for 7th generation consoles and PC. Borderlands 2 is a first-person shooter, action, role-playing-game that features the player as one of the six available character models/classes. Humour is a large element of the game and some of the slapstick humour would be less effective should the game have featured more realistic textures. The lack of heavy detail meant that there could be more assets in the game such as more gun variations and more outfits for your character. When introducing a new character the game would pause and bring up a miniature title screen that would introduce them during the cut-scene that the are first seen, this gives the game a more comic book style and it works well.

Jeramy Cooke was the art director that gave the game it’s visuals. He stated in an interview with Gamasutra that his goal was to “have a richer, larger world” than the previous game. The visual variation between the different areas shows he achieved his target and gave the world a sense of scale and depth.

STEAMPUNK

“Steampunk” is a variation of science-fiction that features heavy use of steam powered machines as opposed to more sleek and advanced technology. The overall style takes a lot of inspiration from 1800s Victorian English trends and fashion, for example top hats, suits and waistcoats are very common in steampunk settings. In mainstream steam-punk media the males are mostly portrayed as gun-slinging gentlemen however women are shown wearing corsets and courtesan inspired skirts, this means that women are heavily sexualised in this form of media. The “punk” side of steampunk comes from the accessories that characters wear, such as some ‘gear’ inspired goggles or a clockwork arm (none of which are electricity based).

Dishonored

The 2012 Game of the Year’ Dishonored is probably the greatest steampunk game made (to date) in my opinion, this is because the steampunk setting doesn’t just act as a gimmick; the lack of technology serves a purpose and effects the game heavily both with story and gameplay mechanics. An example of a steampunk relevant game mechan-ic is the whale oil canisters that you have to insert into the power supply to make machines work, whale oil is the backbone of industry in the game as there is not many other sources of power. The protagonist, Corvo wears a me-chanical mask that is heavily inspired by the steampunk aesthetic; the mask has since become an iconic symbol that best represents the spirit of the game due to it containing a skull design, this mask symbolises death and clockwork (two of the main components of Dishonored). Advanced weapons have not been manufactured in Dishonored, this means that ranged weapons such as guns are limited and this leads to better stealth play because it prevents you from just killing everyone with ease.

The art director, Viktor Antonov got his inspiration from blending 1660’s London with 20th century technology such as the infamous ‘walls of light’. Viktor has a good track record for making great 3D landscapes (as seen with Dishonored’s ‘Dunwall’ and Half Life 2’s City 17). No two places ever really feel the same in his games, there are out-standing differences in each of the nine maps in Dishonored.

Bioshock Infinite

The award winning Bioshock Infinite (2013) is the product of a Steampunk design style mixed with themes of rac-ism, religion and technology. The games story revolves around its Steampunk theme; for example, the ‘sky-hook’ is a Steampunk based tool that allows the player to travel across skylines, the Songbird is a pivotal character in the game that embodies the Steampunk style with its body being a mixture of brass, copper and clockwork. The lack of advanced technology gives the game an opportunity to show off its ability to produce good looking yet clunky ma-chinery.

PIXEL

Pixel oriented games usually utilise a voxel based engine due to the simplicity and ease that the engine features. Pixel games are often the most simple 3D games in terms of coding and are extremely user friendly, this means that there are a lot of pixel based indie games on platforms such as ‘Steam’. The most used genre in Pixel games is survival, this is due to the popular game ‘Minecraft’ that revolutionised modern survival games. Pixel games usually attract a younger player-base, this is due to the simplicity of the aesthetic of the game, this means that it is very easy to comprehend.

Minecraft.

Minecraft is one of the most popular games in recent memory, it revolutionised the pixel, survival, sandbox and construction aspects of modern video games. Minecraft is an infinite, procedurally generated game so a pixel based aesthetic reduces strain on the computer from high quality graphics, this allows for further draw distance and a greater frame rate. The cube based structure allows people to create their own structures that would fit the aesthetic of the game. Redstone is a form of energy in the game and is used to power most power consum-ing assets, since the world is perfectly cube based, players can place it down and form contraptions that feature switches, pistons and repeaters. The simplicity of the games graphics allows players to create their own texture packs, this is great for practicing game artists; using and commenting on other people’s texture packs helps build the community. Due to the lack of visuals, Minecraft offers an incredible amount of world building and free-dom, this is so the player doesn’t become bored by beating pixelated cows with a stick for hours.

Pokémon Diamond

The Nintendo DS game Pokémon Diamond was made in late 2006 by Game Freak. The game features four hundred and ninety three different Pokémon. The games pixel art style allowed more Pokémon and more con-tent to be put in to the game because the artist didn’t have to bother with much detail.

First I took a photo of the textures I wanted to use using a phone with a high definition camera. I then uploaded the files to Google Drive so I could retrieve them with a school computer. I then moved the files in to my ‘T Drive’. I then dragged the file in to Photoshop.

I then clicked (Image > Image Size…) and changed the measurement from ‘centime-tres’ to ‘pixels’ and then made the image 1024x1024. This made the image a perfect square and allowed me to proceed to the next step.

Next I went to (Filter > Other > Offset..) from this point I changed the pixels to ‘512’ as it was half of 1024 (The resolution of my image) by doing this I made the image tile-able, this means that all the edges can fit seamlessly to-gether without looking out of place.

After offsetting the image, I was left with an image that felt very disjointed and mal-formed. Some areas were much darker than others, the features in the image were on different vertical and horizontal levels and there was a clear split in texture and colour.

Using the ‘clone stamp’ tool (S) I was able to replicate certain parts of the image and apply a copy of the selected area in a place that needs covering up; such as the clear lines that sepa-rate the four quarters of the image and I could build believable and better connection to the parts of the image that were on different levels.

I then created a separate layer on top of the blended layer using (Ctrl + Alt + N). I then deleted the darker area of the second layer leaving only the lighter part of the image.

I then darkened the front layer using the ‘hue and saturation’ sliders (Ctrl + U). I fiddled with this feature until I found a good balance of saturation and brightness that made the colour in the front layer cor-respond with the colour in the back layer. I did this so that when the texture is tiled there will be no sudden change in colour.

I then merged the layers with (Ctrl + E) I did this because I needed the front layer to replace the lighter back layer. When the whole image was tonally similar all I needed to do was blend the line left over from the front layer with the image. This resulted in the image looking seamless.

Finished (2x2) tiled texture.

ORIGINAL

DIFFUSE

NORMAL

BUMP

Junkyard DescriptionMy junkyard will be encompassed by a thick metal fence that has melted corpses attached to it; on top of the fence there will be a mixture of power boxes and barbed wire to keep trespassers from climbing over. Behind the fence there is a mixture of destroyed vehicles and dead trees. The ground is littered with rotting food and toxic plants.

Chemical barrels are spilled on the dirt making the area around it toxic. There are many damaged safes lying amidst the piles of scrap metal that if broken into could have some valuables inside. Cars lie on top each other

with dead people still inside, their faces have been ripped off and some of their organs are missing. Empty shipping containers that were used to store scrap can be used as shelter. Stray leaves and rocks litter the ground, these

rocks can be thrown at someone to stagger them or thrown to make a noise and draw people the its location. Piles of boxes and toys can be found on the ground. This junkyard is in a secluded area just outside civilisation.

If left long enough rats will come to feast on the corpses left on the ground. Critters and insects that infest pieces of rotten food can be eaten if someone is desperate enough. Dogs patrol around the junkyard these dogs wear a metal bottom jaw that is attached with a brace around their head this is to intimidate other residents of the junk-yard. These residents include the insane cannibals that grew up here alone and without any education or support.

On the average day, these guys wear makeshift armour; for example, they would have half a tyre on their shoulder, crisp packets on their head and a stop sign as a chest plate.

Packaged and canned food can be found around the junkyard in general along with fizzy drinks and bottled water but the places with the most supplies are cannibal camps. These camps contain 2 to 4 of these cannibals; stealth can play into how people could take these areas over. If you are near a dead body, you could turn to cannibalism

and eat them.The main antagonist is a wealthy businessman’s sadistic son called Calvin. Due to his weak chin he is incredibly

self-conscious and kidnaps people and throws them in a junkyard to make himself feel powerful. The first boss in the game will be called JYNXX, he will be out of reach for the entirety of the first level but you can hear him say how he is going to destroy you but at the boss fight he tries to flee. The second boss is a bald, mutated, insane and hy-

per-intelligent rat that collects information called Meem-Gnar who gives you information on where to escape. After finding out that the escape route is through the sewers you encounter the third boss who is an obese cannibal in the sewers, he is allergic to pickles so you need to throw them in his mouth. After hearing about your attempted

escape, Calvin is waiting for you when you come out of the manhole. It’s here you have a final boss battle.him in his

Style SheetStyle Characteristics

Steampunk was the main style that I wanted to use during my time developing my early concepts; this is

because the clunky machinery and old engines that the Steampunk style is known for lends themselves well to

my ‘Junkyard’ theme. I also want the game to be obscure and seperate from the normalities that we have became accustomed to in present society. Due to the style mak-ing the environment look so strange, the player will be more open to oddities with the humour and gameplay.

Envirnonment breakdownThe junkyard will be filled with rusted metals and discarded packages. The area will be surrounded by a large fence that has barbed wire many fuse boxes attached to it. There will be a few shelters scattered around the map what can be ac-

cessed and used as safehouses. Through out the map there will be masses of scrap and waste that is built up in heaps. The floor is covered in gravel, stone and dirt. My junkyard will be very dull with bright and memorable aspects. I would like to

ustilise the cartoon theme and exadurate proportions in the game to make it more strange and fun.

Theme CharacteristicsJunkyards generally have broken or rusted fea-

tures (e.g. cars, furniture and scrap metal).

How will you make it Your Own?I will make it my own by using an almost imprrovisational art style, for example the scratch marks on a vehicle will make it give the effect it has a mouth on the grill. These little details will make the game

feel very grounded, real and personal.

Referances and InfluencesOne of my influences for this game is Borderlands 2, this is due to the cel shading used in the

game and the similar aesthetic.

Oddworld bares similarities with my design for this game, this is due to the obscure characters that are present and strange surroundings.

For my first thumbnail I wanted to include my bus in the scenery. I used the brush tool to build a basic indicator as to where the buses features were. I exaggerated the width of the top of the bus to give it a slightly broken look.

I then added light to the windows using the brush tool and reducing the opacity. I then decided to create a new layer and use a special brush preset to add a muddy layer on it. I then quickly used the brush tool to add window wipers.

I then added a few wooden panels in different shades of brown. I did this because having multiple broken objects attached to the bus would make it feel more broken and more like a junkyard.

I then used a black brush to outline the seperate pieces of wood. I then used a white brush right next to them to make it look like light and shadow. I then used a thinner brush to outline the detail on the wood.

I used a mixture of grey and orange on the red bus to make it look like rust. I used a similar brush to the one I used on the muddy windows. I then used a blurry black brush and a blurry white brush to go around the headlights and make it more 3D.

Next, I added a Union Jack over the door using a mixture of brush work and messing around with opacity. I also used the same technique as before to add a layer of rust to the side of the bus.t

I then added more detail to the barbed wire on top of the bus. I also added more windows to the bus using the same techniquw as before. I added shadow to the little piece of metal on the side of the bus. This gives the image more depth.

I felt as though the bus was a bit bland so I decided to add a more introcate decoration to it. It is a hastily scribbled message to enemies. This adds more colour to the image and makes it feel more alive.

I decided that the bus would be more unique if it was raised on pieces of concrete. I added three concrete supports under the bus and made them muddy. I quickly realised that the player would need a way onto the raised bus so I added a small pathway to the door using the same technique for wood that I used before. After that I simply added shadow.

After the bus was completed I decided to work on te back-ground. I added an overcast sky and a muddy floor. I used the blurry brush to create a sun. I added a fence to make the place look more secure. I added shad-ow to the fence by using a black brush and reducing the opacity.

I then added a lot of misc. items to the image such as fridges and severed heads. I re-used a lot of techniques from the bus in other objects such as making the tyres muddy, the fridge rusty and the pikes bloody. I used a special white brush to make the clouds. I added birds in the sky to add more scope to the image. I added a pow-er box to the fence to imply that it is electric. The image now feels more like a junkyard.

I used the brush tool to draw in the basic colours. I used a strong brush because I didn’t want to have to keep managing opacity. I decided to make this design simpler to save time whilst trying to maintain a good level of quality.

I used the brush tool to out-line all the junk. I used a mixture of techniques when doing this such as cross hatching and using fine lines. I think it worked fairly well.

I coloured and shaded the image. I used the mag-ic wand to select the areas I wanted to shade. I used multiple layers for base col-our, light and shadow. It was tough getting in the detail but I think I did a decent job.

First I opened up 3DS MAX and started a new project. Then I clicked [+] and chose to maximise my view-point, this means that I would be able to see my project on full screen which means I can get a better view of what I’m doing. After that I chose a base shape to work from; a cube is the ideal choice when modelling most land vehicles as it is easy to mould.

In order to sculpt from the base shape that I made I needed to add geometry. The way I added geometry is by increas-ing the amount of length segs, width segs and height segs. This means that there are more points to sculpt from when I proceed to the next step. I didn’t want to start with too many segs because it would become more of a restraint (having to manage so many at once before I have a general idea of shape that I am working from).

After working out a good amount of segs to have on my starting shape I needed to utilise the geometry so I could shape the object. To do this I needed to (R CLICK > Convert To: > Convert to Editable Poly) this allows me to select and transform the all the verticies, edges and faces of my shape.

In order to sculpt from the base shape that I made I need-ed to add geometry. The way I added geometry is by in-creasing the amount of length segs, width segs and height segs. This means that there are more points to sculpt from when I proceed to the next step. I didn’t want to start with too many segs because it would become more of a re-straint (having to manage so many at once before I have a general idea of shape that I am working from).

The next step in my design plan for the bus was to smooth out the edges. To achieve this, I used the ‘move tool’ to drag some segs closer to the edges (at equal distance). The rea-son for this is because if just one seg defined an edge then it would be sharp. Sharp edges often remove immersion (at least in my experience) unless they are meant to be there. I then took the middle seg and pushed it further in to the larger shape using the ‘move tool’, by doing this I have creat-ed a smoother and more realistic edge.

After I added more geometry to the edges I decided to round them off. In order to do this, I needed to select the edge and drag it further into the base shape. The two edged next to the middle edge will ensure that the edge becomes rounded. After that I selected the vertices on the corner and made sure that they weren’t sharp; this was tricky to get even because you have to check it from a lot of perspectives.

When the base shape was established I began to carve into the structure. The picture to the left displays me using the ‘bevel tool’; when trying to extrude parts of my model, I like to use bevel instead of extrude because bevel keeps the faces that are selected connected. When bevelling I always remember to manage the ratio of bev-eling to extrusion; I do this so I can maintain a certain sense of realism when modelling.

I didn’t feel as though my model lived up to the ‘Junkyard’ theme so I decided to add scrap metal and other broken objects to the bus to give it a ‘make-shift’ look. These objects include wooden panels, metal window covers and cloth shelters. I think these really improved the piece as a whole and it now feels more as though it would be found in a junkyard if people lived in one. The stairs were particularly difficult because I didn’t know how to connect the three pieces of wood to both supporting planks.

I then used the bevel tool to bring out the three concrete supports that will raise the bus and make it more unique. I then lowered both sides of the bottom of each support, I did this so the structure didn’t look half hearted. I believe that it was a good idea because this gives the structure more complexity and makes it more interesting as opposed to a regular bus.

Then it was time for unwraping. I added the ‘unwrap UWV’ modi-fier this allowed me to break apart the UWV map so I could texture sections of the model individually. I selected the faces where I wanted a specific texture to be, I then broke it off and peeled it. Peeling things makes it look more similar to the shape of the piece on the model.

I then added the textures to the model using standard material maps. I used standard maps because they are easy to understand. I mostly only used diffuse and normal maps to give some form of texture.

I then used the faces selector and select-ed the faces that I wanted to texture. I then linked the texture to the surface I wanted it to sit on. The process whent surprisingly smoothly with only a few small blips such as one or two stretched textures.

I then formulated my final texture map. Some textures were too ambitious to tile so I opened up my map in Adobe Pho-toshop and added in the images (these include the lettering on the front of the bus, the scratches on the paint, the messages that are on the advertisement section of the bus). After completing the map al I had to do was drag in on to the model in Unity

To begin I created a ter-rain. I thought that the ter-rain seemed quite small so I made it bigger by adjust-ing its dimensions. I made chose a texture to use and applied it to the terrain.

I then raised and lowered some parts of the terrain. The raised ter-rain is going to look like a big scrap pile in order to appeal to the ‘Junk-yard’ theme. I decided that I wanted the floor to be a different colour than the scrap piles so I used one of my lighter textures on the floor. I added a slight bumpy texture to the entire map so that it doesn’t look perfectly flat.

I continued the previous pattern throughout the en-tire map and I’m generaly happy with the result. It looks dull which isjust what I wanted. The general aes-thetic reminds me of Fallout 3.

I than added a skybox. In order to do this I had to drag each angle of the sky-box in to a single file. I then used the collective file as the skybox.

I then imported my bus model. I had to add in the textures af-ter it was placed. I added a mesh collider so that I couldn’t walk through it. I think it looks decent. Some of the textures are glitched.

Final Evaluation.I’ve learned a lot throughout the process of making my environment. I have be-came familiar with 3DS MAX and now feel confident enough to start making more ambitious models and textures. Whilst originally very strenuous, unwraping has became more simple now that I am aware of the different techniques I can use. I am proud of the bus itself and I am happy with the way it turned out. One thing I will focus my efforts on in the next project is making sure my textures are proper-ly placed. I feel as though my textures were well done because they conform to the darker colour scheme of the terrain it is in.